The thoughts and reflections of one who is passionate about Jesus and struggles with sin just like everyone else.

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Monday, May 27, 2013

The Ways the Apostle John Uses the Old Testament in Revelation

Here is a rather long and technical quote that I found incredibly insightful. If you get lost in the technical jargon, skip to the last paragraph! The quote reinforces the brilliance and the inner logic of the biblical writers working under the inspiration of the Spirit. It also points to the need for thoughtful reflection on Scripture with a

biblical theological framework.

"Attention also should be directed to
what might be called John's stylistic use of OT language. It has
long been recognized that Revelation contains a multitude of
grammatical solecisms. Charles claimed that Revelation contained
more grammatical irregularities than any other Greek document of the
ancient world. He accounted for this with his famous dictum, “While
he writes in Greek, he thinks in Hebrew, and the thought has
naturally affected the vehicle of expression (Charles 1920:
1:cxliii).

But was this intentional on the
author’s part or an unconscious by-product of his Semitic mind? It
seems that his grammatical “howlers” are deliberate attempts to
express Semiticisms and septuagintalisms in his Greek, the closest
analogy being that of the LXX translations, especially Aquila (Sweet
1979: 16; see also S. Thompson 1985: 108 and passim). The fact
that most of the time the author does keep the rules further points
to the solecisms being intentional.

Why did John write this way?
Sometimes his purpose was deliberately to create a “biblical”
effect in the hearer and thus to demonstrate the solidarity of his
work with that of the divinely inspired OT Scriptures (Sweet
1979:16). A polemical purpose may also have been included. John
may have been expressing the idea that OT truth via the church as the
new Israel was uncompromisingly penetrating the Gentile world and
would continue to do so until the Parousia."

GK Beale and DA
Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament,
p. 1087.